Christmas Tree Ship brightened the Chicago holiday

The Christmas season is a time rich with traditions and fond family memories of years gone by. One tradition most identified with the holiday season was brought from Germany centuries ago, the warmth and glow of a decorated Christmas tree. Today, one can buy a Christmas tree almost anywhere, but over a century ago in a big city, like Chicago, it could be a real challenge. Balsam Fir, Scots Pine and the other assorted evergreens that most people wanted for a Christmas tree didn’t readily grow anywhere near the sprawling concrete and brick metropolis on the south shore of Lake Michigan. However, those trees flourished at the north end of the lake. Logging companies, looking to make a profit from their land, soon started cutting the 5 to 8 foot trees to sell to sailing captains willing to haul them by the boat load back to the Chicago area. This practice proved so profitable that, by the early 1870’s, it had spawned an entire industry.  
 
    Sometime in the mid 1880’s two of the most colorful and endearing figures ever to ply the Chicago waterfront were just starting in the Christmas tree shipping business. Captain August Schuenemann and his younger brother, Herman, had already established themselves as competitive traders and tree merchants. The two were excellent sailors and shrewd businessmen. As the years passed, both men continued to sail the lakes in search of cargoes from May to October to keep their ships earning their keep. Two-thirds of their annual income was generated between the middle of October and Christmas from the sale of Christmas Trees hauled down from the North country during the treacherous fall months.  
 The Schuenemann brothers sought a cheaper source of trees that took them farther north than their competition dared to venture in the stormy fall months on Lake Michigan. They would sell the trees directly to customers from the deck of the ship dockside on the busy Chicago waterfront, thus eliminating the need for wholesalers or the cost of hauling trees to local merchants and grocers.

    They also sought the advantage of larger sailing ships that could carry more trees and that would be safer during the fall gales. Regrettably, a larger ship came too late to save August Schuenemann.

    In early November of 1898, Capt. Schuenemann loaded 3,500 Christmas trees aboard the S. Thal, a 78 foot schooner, in Sturgeon Bay, WI. He had purchased the load at a rock bottom price. His brother Herman was home in Chicago after the birth of his twin daughters Hazel and Pearl. It was one of the rare occasions that they were not sailing together on a Christmas Tree run.

    On the morning of November 6th, August and three crew members set out for Chicago with the S. Thal’s fragrant cargo and high hopes for a very profitable voyage. Later that day, a howling North gale swooped down Lake Michigan. On November 9th. the ship was lost with all hands off Glencoe, Illinois.

    Herman Schuenemann was deeply saddened by the loss of his brother. The fact that they had had to pay cash for the trees before they had been loaded on the doomed ship added to his misery and threatened his business.

    Always the optimist, Schuenemann continued to pursue the business plan that he and August had set in place. He found a bigger ship -the schooner Rouse Simmons. The new vessel was 127 feet long, creating a new opportunity to increase his business. He acquired choice dock space at the foot of Clark St. right where the Chicago River entered Lake Michigan. A Christmas Tree was mounted atop the main mast and electric lights were strung from the schooner's bow to stern with a sign “Christmas Tree Ship: Our Prices Are Lowest”, inviting customers to board the ship to choose their trees.

    Barbara Schuenemann, Herman’s wife, and their three daughters, made and sold wreaths, garlands and other holiday decorations by the warmth of the ship’s galley stove to add to the family's holiday trade.

    At some point in his long career, Herman Schuenemann's was given the title of Captain Santa. The affectionate nickname was bestowed by Chicago's local newspapers, and by the city's grateful residents. Schuenemann's profits from selling Christmas trees at .50 cents to $1 each had never made the family wealthy, but his reputation for generosity was well known, and he delighted in presenting trees to many of the city's needy residents. Schuenemann enjoyed the moniker and proudly kept newspaper clippings about his role as Captain Santa.

    In 1910, Schuenemann bought 250 acres of  Christmas Tree forest land near Manistique on the south shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. For the nominal expense of only a few dollars per acre, this would ensure him of a better source of quality trees at very little cost. By hiring his own cutting crew, he was able to have trees ready for loading and shipping each time he arrived with the Rouse Simmons at a natural harbor adjacent to the tract of land.

    By 1912, Schuenemann was a seasoned schooner master who had hauled Christmas Trees to Chicago for almost three decades. He was in his prime as a lake captain, but the same could not be said for the Rouse Simmons. The once sleek sailing vessel was 44 years old and long past its peak sailing days. Time, the elements, and hundreds of heavy loads of lumber, fence posts, shingles and whatever else they could carry at a profit, had taken their toll on the vessel's condition.

    In early November, Schuenemann sailed the Rouse Simmons north for what they hoped would be their most profitable trip in years. Difficult weather and early snow storms had discouraged his competitors from making their own journeys to load up on trees for the coming holiday season. He hoped that the shortage of trees in Chicago would lead to a huge profit, and help solve his lingering financial problems. His aging sailing ship made it difficult to compete with newer and larger steel steamers.

    On Friday, November 22, 1912, the Rouse Simmons, was heavily laden with 5,500 sweet-smelling Christmas trees filling its cargo hold and covering its deck. They put out from Thompson Harbor near Manistique. Instead of the normal crew of 7, there were 10 others aboard, tree cutters heading back home to Chicago, along for the Simmons last trip for the season.

    Schuenemann's departure coincided with the beginning of a howling winter storm on Lake Michigan that would eventually send several other ships to the bottom, including the South Shore, Three Sisters, and Two Brothers.

    What happened after the Rouse Simmons departed the tiny harbor at Thompson is unknown. A Life Saving Station log indicated that at 2:50 p.m. on Saturday, November 23, 1912, an observer at the station in Kewaunee, Wisconsin alerted the station keeper, Capt. Nelson Craite, that a schooner (the Rouse Simmons's identity was unknown at the time) was sighted headed south flying its flag at half-mast and upside down -a universal sign of distress.

    In his remarks on the incident, Craite wrote, "I immediately took the glasses, and made out that there was a distress signal. The schooner was between 5 and 6 miles E.S.E. with a gale blowing from the N.W." Craite attempted to locate a tugboat to assist the schooner but none was available. After a few minutes, the life-saving crew at Kewaunee lost sight of the ship. At 3:10 p.m., Craite telephoned Station Keeper Capt. George E. Sogge at Two Rivers, the next station further south. Craite informed Sogge that a schooner was headed south, flying distress signals.

    Sogge ordered the Two Rivers surfmen to launch the station's motor lifeboat. The lifesavers reached the schooner's approximate position quickly, but darkness, heavy snow and mist obscured any trace of the Rouse Simmons and its crew. The Rouse Simmons and the 17 souls aboard had sailed into eternity.

    A short time later a message in a bottle from the Rouse Simmons washed onto the shore at Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It had been corked using a small piece of cut pine tree and, other than the occasional trees caught in fishing nets, was the only remains of the vessel discovered for many years. The message read:

    “Friday...everybody goodbye. I guess we are all through. During the night the small boat  washed overboard. Leaking badly. Invald and Steve lost too. God help us.”

    In the years following the calamity, Barbara and her daughters continued the family's Christmas Tree business as best they could. Newspaper accounts suggest that they chartered schooners for several more years to bring trees to Chicago. Later, the women had the evergreen trees brought to Chicago by train and then sold them from the deck of a docked schooner. After Barbara's death in 1933, the daughters sold trees from the family's lot for a few seasons but the bitter depression years brought that to an end.

    Over the years, the Rouse Simmons disappearance spawned legends and tales that have grown with the passage of time. During fall gales, some Lake Michigan mariners claim to have spotted her appearing out of nowhere, sails in taters and flying distress signals, only to disappear again like a wraith. Others on shore have remarked that, upon visiting the graveside of Barbara Schuenemann at Chicago’s Acacia Park Cemetery, a faint smell of pine can be perceived.

    The location of the Rouse Simmons' wreck would remain a mystery for decades  until Milwaukee diver Kent Bellrichard discovered the vessel's remains in 165 feet of water 12 miles northeast of Two Rivers in 1971. Still visible in the cargo hold are the bare skeletons of Christmas Trees stacked layer upon layer.

    In 2000, a group of Great Lakes historians, having researched the Rouse Simmons and Captain Herman Schueneman, came up with a novel idea. They proposed to the Captain of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, Commander John Nickerson, that they could get Christmas Trees donated or bought with donated funds if the Mackinaw could deliver them to needy families in Chicago.

    Commander Nickerson forwarded the group’s idea to the Ninth Coast Guard District in Cleveland, along with his endorsement. Each year since in early December, the final voyage of Captain Schuenemann and the Rouse Simmons is commemorated by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, which makes the journey from northern Michigan to deliver a symbolic load of Christmas trees to Chicago's disadvantaged. Once the Mackinaw arrives at Chicago’s Navy Pier, the crew, along with the local Coast Guard Auxiliary, help off load the trees and assist in making a choice.

    Captain Schuenemann and the crew of the Rouse Simmons would be proud that the tradition lives on.

Jon Paul and Brent Michaels are the authors of “Collision under the Bridge” and can be reached at bullheadppublishing@yahoo.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The US Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw will be unable to make the traditional Christmas Tree Ship run to Chicago this year. Instead of hauling a load of Christmas Trees for Chicago’s underprivileged families, the ship must undergo repairs to a bow thruster to be ready for buoy tending and ice breaking duties this winter.